Fear is the Key

The sweat poured down our faces in rivulets. The temperature had risen to almost 120? Fahrenheit, the air was humid and now almost indescribably foul. Our hoarse rasping gasps as we fought for oxygen was the only sound in that tiny steel ball resting on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 480 feet below the level of the sea.

"You jinxed it?" Vyland's voice was a weak incredulous whisper, his eyes near-crazed with fear, "We're — we're stuck

here? Here, in this-" His voice faded away as he turned

his head and started looking around with all the terror-stricken desperation of a cornered rat about to die. Which was ail he was.

"There's no way out, Vyland," I assured him grimly. "Only through that entrance hatch. Maybe you want to try opening it? — at this depth there can only be a pressure of fifty tons or so on the outside of it. And if you could open it — well, you'd be flattened half an inch thick against the opposite bulkhead. Don't take it too badly, Vyland — the last few minutes will be agony such as you've never believed man could know, you'll be able to see your hands and your face turning blue and purple in the last few seconds before all the major blood vessels in your lungs start to rupture, but soon after that you'll-"

"Stop it, stop it!" Vyland screamed. "For God's sake stop it! Get us out of here, Talbot, get us out of here! I'll give you anything you like, one million, two millions, five millions. You can have it all, Talbot, you can have it all!" His mouth and face worked like a maniac's, his eyes were staring out of his head.

"You make me sick," I said dispassionately. "I wouldn't get you out if I could, Vyland. And it was just in case that I might be tempted that I left the control switch up in the rig. We've got fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to live, if you can call the screaming agony well know living. Or, rather, the agony you'll know." I put my hand to my coat, ripped off the central button and thrust it into my mouth. "I won't know a thing, I've been prepared for this for months. That's no button, Vyland, it's a concentrated cyanide capsule. One bite on that and I'll be dead before I know I'm dying."

That got him. Dribbling from a corner of his mouth and babbling incoherently, he flung himself on me, with what purpose in mind I don't know. He was too crazed to know himself. But I had been expecting it, a heavy spanner lay to hand and I'd picked it up and swung it before he even touched me. It wasn't much of a blow, but it was enough: he reeled backwards, struck Us head against the casing and collapsed heavily on the floor.

That left Royale. He was half-sitting, half-crouched on his little canvas stool, his sphinx-like control had completely snapped, he knew he had only minutes to live and his face was working overtime making up for all those expressions it hadn't used in those many years. He saw closing in on himself what he had meted out to so many victims over so long a time and the talons of fear were squeezing deep, reaching for the innermost corners of his mind. He wasn't panic-stricken yet, not completely out of control as Vyland had gone, but his capacity for reason, for thought, was gone. Ail he could think to do was what he always thought to do in an emergency and that was of using his deadly little black gun. He had it out now and it was pointing at me, but I knew it meant nothing, it was purely a reflex action and he had no intention of using it. For the first time Royale had met a problem that couldn't be solved by a squeeze of the trigger finger.

"You're scared, Royale, aren't you?" I said softly. It was an effort now even to speak, my normal breathing rate of about sixteen was now up to fifty, and it was difficult to get the time to force out a word.

He said nothing, just looked at me, and all the devils in hell were in the depth of those black eyes. For a second time in forty-eight hours, and this time in spite of the humidity, the foul and evil-smelling air in that cabin, I could have sworn I caught the smell of new-turned, moist, fresh earth. The smell you get from an open grave.

"The big bad hatchet-man," I whispered huskily. "Royale. Royale the killer. Think of all the people who used to tremble, who still do tremble, whenever they hear the breath of your name? Don't you wish they could see you now? Don't you, Royale? Don't you wish they could see you trembling? You are trembling, Royale, aren't you?

You're terrified as you've never been terrified in your life.

Aren't you, Royale?"

Again he said nothing. The devils were still in his eyes, but they weren't watching me any more, they were riding herd on Royale, they were digging deep into the dark recesses of that dark mind, the shift and play of expression on his contorted face was evidence enough that they were pulling him every which way but the overall pull was towards the dark precipice of complete breakdown, of that overmastering fear that wears the cloak of insanity.